Not much left of the vaunted trade balance: Brian Setzer’s chart puts the financial and energy crisis in perspective (though I’m sure he’d disagree that the declining dollar bears much responsibility. But my perspective is clouded by being a grad student having to pay to do research in Europe. Right, Andrew?).

So the euro, our currency, has become a problem for US policy makers. Gorging on debt as a wealth creation, they have been freeriding on the dollar’s previously unassailable role for a very long time. But now, there is an alternative, and there finally are Europeans willing to say that the emperor is naked. This is a momentous event.